WHICH IS THE BEST ENERGY SUPPLER?
Which is the best energy provider for my salon or freelance hairdressing business? By best we mean best for the planet of course, wich means no fossil fuels involved, instead gas and electricity from renewable energy sources.
And important to know, the energy you use comes from the grid and it’s the same as everyone else’s. How it works is that if you buy green energy then your supplier will (or should) add sufficient renewable energy to the grid to match what you take out.
For electricity it’s all relatively easy to understand, for gas, maybe not so simple!
If you want to go directly to choosing your greener suppler without reading further, the best 2 according to Ethical Consumer are 100Green and Ecotricity.
They also recommend Good Energy and Octopus Energy. Octopus Energy offer some potentially cheaper tariffs. However, remember, the best approach to reducing your energy costs and carbon emissions is to use less. Check out Salon RE:Source or Freelance RE:Source for how to do this.
Which supplier to choose for electricity?
100green, Ecotricity, Good Energy and Octopus all stand out.
Avoid the various renewables tariffs offered by the “big 5” companies. Unfortunately many “green” or “100% renewable” tariffs use a loophole called REGO (Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin ) certificates. Unfortunately these don’t guarantee 100% renewable energy,(it’s all a bit complicated).
Which supplier to choose for gas?
Remember “natural gas” means mains gas. It is natural in that it is sourced from natural fossil fuel deposits. Coal and oil are natural too. Natural gas has high carbon emissions from drilling, cooling and shipping.
Good Energy, 100green and Ecotricity each claim to provide green gas. But its not that simple.
100green uses gas produced from organic waste through anaerobic digestion which covers 100% of their customer demand.
Good Energy uses this type of gas too, but just 10% of its supply whilst the other 90% is natural gas for which they offset the carbon emissions.
Octopus also include “green gas” in their mix and offset the rest.
Ecotricity have their own green supply, using grass cuttings broken down by anaerobic digestion to produce gas. But this only contributes 1% (according to Ethical Consumer, posibly increasing over time) to their supply with the other 99% being offset.
So the best choice for gas appears to be 100green.
Which means that if buy both electricity and gas, it looks like the best choice is 100green.
If you are very price conscious, then Octopus is your best bet. Whilst Ecotricity source their electricity (and 1% of their gas) from their own solar and wind parks (and grass cuttings!)and campaign actively to end fossil fuels.
And don’t forget, switch off the lights and turn down the heating!
Thanks to Ethical Consumer for much of this information.